FCC Considering Options to Speed Up In-Flight Wi-Fi

If you hate paying for Wi-Fi on your flight only to end up with a very slow connection, the FCC has good news: It wants to speed up your internet above the clouds.

The proposal calls for freeing up 500 megahertz of airwaves for air-to-ground broadband. That's a very wide swath of wireless spectrum.

By comparison, a popular current in-flight Wi-Fi service utilizes just three megahertz to connect to a 3G data service, and split that slow connection over Wi-Fi to dozens of passengers.

The FCC wants to award the 500 megahertz of spectrum to one or two companies via a license auction.

Currently, that spectrum is being used for satellite communications, and the satellite industry association alleges the FCC's plan would degrade service and will result in major revenue losses for its companies.

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